What if the greatest accomplishment of your life was obliterated -- by your own family -- after your death?

Norwegian immigrant Helga Estby, together wWhat if the greatest accomplishment of your life was obliterated -- by your own family -- after your death?

Norwegian immigrant Helga Estby, together with her eldest daughter, walked across the United States, largely following railroad tracks, from Spokane Washington to New York, New York, unescorted, with only the clothes they stood up in and $5 each, in response to a challenge by an unnamed personage.

Their adventure, triumphs, and heartbreaks, were nearly lost to history, silenced by a family outraged with the women's unconventional journey. Were it not for the disobedience of a single descendent, their amazing journey, accomplished in an era where women were viewed as incapable of such sustained effort, would have been lost to history.

Reconstructed from newspaper accounts, contemporary news accounts and the barest mention from surviving family members, the account is a stark reminder of how hard life was for pioneer women -- and how few their options were to ensure their families' material comforts in the 19th century....more

I swiped this book from the library shelves of a place we were staying, and (having travelled through the region, including the Medieval town of CarcaI swiped this book from the library shelves of a place we were staying, and (having travelled through the region, including the Medieval town of Carcassone) found the descriptions of the country engaging and the history of the Cathar and Languedoc region quite interesting.

That being said, the storyline is terribly derivative, and full of florid descriptions which left me seeking the essential thread of the tale. The characters have about as much depth as your average B movie, and the climactic conclusion left me cold. The author makes fairly liberal use of French and Occitan phrases (with a glossary for the latter in the back of the book, and since I speak French, this wasn't an issue for me, though it may very well frustrate readers not familiar with the languages.

I see that there are more books to follow, but doubt if I'd bother picking them up, though I am left with a desire to read more about the history from a competent historian....more